Friday, May 29, 2015

I can't believe May is basically over! Why do the summer months have to go by so quickly when January and February drag on and on?!? We have a few fun things planned this weekend and Chris should even be home early tonight... yay!!! Have a great Friday and weekend! Here's my usual Five on Friday :)

ONE

Noah got his first Build-A-Bear last December. We had just had some cousin pictures taken, and since they all did so well, my mom took them all to pick out a bear and outfit. Noah loves his monkey, but he's looking a little odd now wearing his super winter outfit. My mom told Noah that we need to take him shopping for some summer appropriate clothes ;) We finally went this week, and this is what Noah picked out...

TWO

Noah has improved a lot in swim class this past month. There are only 2 more classes left until we are off for the summer. Thankfully we have a pool in the neighborhood so Noah can keep practicing his new skills. Last year, we used this puddle jumper, and while it's great, Noah doesn't have to do any work to stay afloat. And since the objective is to have Noah learn how to swim, I wanted to get the swim belt that he uses in actual swim class. Amazon to the rescue... we now own our very own Instructional Swim Belt!

THREE

When we were at the playground last weekend, we noticed some kids playing catch with these velcro frog mittens. Chris immediately looked them up on Amazon, and shocker, Melissa and Doug made them. Man that company is genius (and must be loaded)! Chris ordered them right away and were delivered by Memorial Day (I love Amazon Prime)! Noah loved playing with them and we hope that it helps with his catching skills.

FOUR

My mom is an activity leader at her church for the kids. She comes up with these really fun activities and sometimes she will do them with Noah too. This week, she did a "Dinosaur Garden" with Noah. With the girls, she does fairy gardens, but she got Noah more "boy" items to place in his garden. It's pretty simple... just get a flower pot and some flowers and then decorate or accessorize with dinosaurs and other fun toys. The idea is that the fairies, or dinosaurs, live in the flower pot. Even though the kids my mom does this with are quite a bit older, Noah had so much fun! We went with my parents to pick out the flowers. Noah was very specific wanting yellow and purple flowers (his and my favorite color). While he didn't want to touch the dirt to plant the flowers, he was very interested in filling it with the toys and very specific as to which ones would make the cut. Both my mom and dad would make suggestions as to what to put in and he often told them no or simply removed it from the pot.

FIVE

We bought this sand/water table last summer and Noah loves it! Last year we used it strictly as a water table. This spring we decided to fill it with sand, with the intention of switching it to water when it got warmer. But then we found that Noah loved the sand, so instead we bought a second (smaller and cheaper) water table so we can have both set up all summer. It came this week and one of Noah's friends came over yesterday and they played with it for the first time.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

While the first day of Summer isn't for another few weeks, I always consider Memorial Day to kick off Summer! So since Summer has unofficially commenced, here is my family bucket list! Like last year, we have a few trips planned as well as some fun activities to do at home. This will be our first full summer in the house and I'm so excited to spend the majority of our time outside!

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

On Sunday, we spent the day at my friend, Kristen's, lake house. It was only about a 45 minute ride away and we lucked out with beautiful weather. The "babies" played in the baby pool while the adults got to enjoy sitting in the sun by the lake. Noah and Chris did venture out on a paddle boat, but other than that, we stayed on land. We had a delicious lunch and then headed home. I guess we wore Noah out because he fell asleep 5 minutes into the car ride home and slept for about 3 hours!

On Memorial Day Monday, we took Noah mini golfing. We had planned to go on Saturday, but decided to wait for a warmer day. And boy did we get a warmer day! Honestly, something in between high 50s and 80s would have been nice!

Noah loved mini golfing last year and even got 2 hole in ones (with the help of Chris of course). While he didn't get a hole in one, he did still have fun. We tried out a new place this year that was more kid oriented with safari animals at all the holes. Noah lost interest in hitting the ball by the 10th hole but was still fascinated by all the animals.

We then grabbed some lunch at McDonalds and stopped by a nearby playground. It's pirate ship themed so we knew Noah would like it. It was a little too hot for my taste, so we didn't stay long. Noah passed out quickly on the car ride home.

After we rested for most of the afternoon, we went outside to do some chalk art. It had finally cooled off a little bit so it was a nice nighttime activity. Though we learned that we really aren't very talented artists ;)

Monday, May 25, 2015

Chris has been off since Friday and we've been loving this extra long weekend! Yesterday, we spent the day at a friend's lake house, but I'll be back tomorrow to share all about that. In the meantime, I'll fill you in about our fun on Friday and Saturday :)

On Friday, we brought Daddy to Wompy's. Apparently lots of dads had off for the holiday because there were 4 other dads in class today too!

Chris takes the train to work everyday and Noah is obsessed with trains. When Chris works late, he has to change trains, so while waiting for his second train, he FaceTimes with Noah to say goodnight and shows him the trains passing by. Noah loves this so much that he will ask to call Chris during the day thinking he will get to see trains. After music class, Chris had the great idea to take the train (for just 2 stops), have lunch in town, and then head back. We invited our friends to go with us and the boys had so much fun!

In the evening, we packed a simple dinner and headed over to the park. Noah had so much fun running back and forth from the picnic table to the playground. He would come by and eat something and then right away say, "Dada play", and off they went! On the way home, we stopped for some frozen yogurt... the perfect way to end our evening :)

On Saturday, we had Chris' parents over for a BBQ and to celebrate Chris' mom's (Nonna) birthday (which was last Monday). Despite a chilly morning, it warmed up by the afternoon. We spent the afternoon playing on the deck and were able to eat dinner outside too. We then went inside to play hide and seek, do some puzzles, and sing Happy Birthday to Nonna.